BETTS, Robert Paul, Rev (1937-2015)
Assembly memorial minute, 2015
Robert Betts was born in the Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, England, in 1937, and spent the first 13 years of his life in Portsmouth. When Robert’s father, who was in the Royal Navy during WW2, was killed in an accident 3 years after the war ended, his mother made the hard decision to migrate to Australia with her 3 boys, arrived in 1950 and settled in
Frankston. Three years later at age 15, Robert continued his family’s long military tradition by joining the Royal Australian Air Force as an apprentice. He was stationed at Wagga Wagga. It was while he was at Point Cook in 1963 that
he met Leonie, the love of his life. Robert was the patient, Leonie the dental nurse.
A life-changing event occurred only two months after their arrival in Western Australia, when, at an organised Tent Mission, both Robert and Leonie became Christians. They returned to Melbourne in 1968, and left the Air Force after completing his 15 years’ service. They attended a Wycliffe Bible Translators missionary meeting, a meeting that sowed the seed that ultimately led them to the decision to attend Bible College for three years, with the view to pastoral ministry upon completion.
Robert spent the first six years of his ministry in the western suburbs of Sydney, which at the time was where the start of the drug scene in Australia was happening. Returning to Melbourne at the end of 1979, Robert then ministered with the Presbyterian Church in a number of country parishes before moving to suburban Melbourne to continue his ministry.
Robert Betts served the Presbyterian Church of Victoria well and in so many different capacities. In cricketing terms – an all-rounder:
as a pastor of several churches, finishing at Canterbury;
as a chaplain in the army reserve;
as a missionary, with 7 years’ sterling translation work in Kenya and Uganda;
as a lecturer at the PTC, helping students with the intricacies of Hebrew;
as a moderator of this General Assembly and also as a genuine friend and father figure to many of us.
We’ll miss Robert’s cheery smile, pleasant nature, politeness and courtesy, his infectious love of cricket and we’ll even miss his jokes. Robert Betts was a man of learning and culture, and man of generous spirit and brotherly kindness. But, above all, he was a minister of the Gospel and he loved Christ with all his mind and heart and soul and strength. He made the most of every opportunity he had as a minister of the Gospel, until the ravages of illness took his strength and forced him to step down. If he could, he’d be urging us all to redeem the time and work while it is still the day.
Rev Robert Betts, died—full of faith—aged 78 years.
Gender
- Male